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Yes… yes… no? G spot finding fails to convince

By Helen Thomson

G marks the spot. Or does it? One researcher claims to have pinpointed and described the anatomy of the elusive G spot, an area of the vagina reputed to produce intense orgasms when stimulated. Many others are not so sure, saying that the G spot is unlikely to be a single structure.

“It’s akin to concluding that the Empire State Building is New York City,” says Barry Komisaruk at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey.

The G spot refers to an area on the front of the vaginal wall, a few centimetres from the entrance of the vagina. Stimulating this area is said to cause swelling and create an orgasm without stimulating the clitoris.

As far back as the 11th century, ancient Indian texts described a sensitive area in the vagina inducing sexual pleasure. In 2008, Emmanuele Jannini at the University of L’Aquila in Italy discovered anatomical differences in the thickness of tissue in the region between the vagina and urethra in women who claimed to have vaginal orgasms compared with those who did not.

Adam Ostrzenski, director of the Institute of Gynecology in St Petersburg, Florida, now claims to have found a clear anatomical structure, not yet described in the literature, that he identifies as the G spot. Ostrzenski performs cosmetic gynaecological procedures and says he has observed the structure several times. His patients confirm that its position coincides with the G spot area.

To get a clearer picture, he has dissected the anterior vaginal wall in the cadaver of an 83-year-old.

“I selected an old lady for the dissection because I wanted to see whether this structure was persistent through life or just in the younger population.”

He found a clearly defined sac in a layer between the vagina and the urethra close to the perineal membrane. The sac was around 16 millimetres from the upper part of the urethral opening. At less than a centimetre long, it was positioned at a 35-degree angle to the urethra.

Inside the sac Ostrzenski found a “worm-like” structure with three distinct regions that broadly “resemble erectile tissue – normally found in areas such as the clitoral body”.

See diagram&colon; “They seek it here…”

He believes no one has found the sac before because of its size and location deep within the vaginal tissue. “It’s not easy to find,” he says. He adds that it should not be confused with Skene glands – another contender for the G spot. These glands are small, flaccid balloon-like masses on either side of the urethra, analogous to the male prostate gland, which are involved in sexual arousal.

Amichai Kilchevsky at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, who led the recent review of the G spot literature, says that without a detailed examination of the tissue to determine its function in life, “the significance of the organ that has been uncovered is unclear”. Ostrzenski says he will perform the necessary histological analysis on cadavers within the next few weeks.

Jannini raises another possibility&colon; the structure may be a sign of disease, given the age of the cadaver. If it is not, though, it probably has a sexual function – Jannini says that structures found in this area usually do. With such a density of nerves and glands here, he says, there may be a G spot complex that also involves the clitoris – rather than a distinct, solitary G spot.

Beverly Whipple at Rutgers University and colleagues, who coined the term “G spot” in 1981, agrees. “I’m very happy that people are interested in this but I think there’s a lot more to it than just one tissue,” she says. “We have never said that the G spot is a distinct structure.”

The area is also under dramatic hormonal control, says Jannini, which has an impact on the function of the tissue. “Anatomy is wonderful but not enough by itself.”